because my life is ruined shitheap of misery and i dont have the emotional capacity to deal with kids, the financial capacity to afford kids, and my genetics are a ticking timebomb that i really wouldnt want to inflict on kids the way it was inflicted on me.

and lets not even get into the world itself and how its a festering cesspit on teetering on the edge of fascistic ruin because an elite group of corrupt billionaires don't want to ever give up their dragon hordes, or their ability to fuck infants and toddlers.

Do you have any idea how much you have to abuse a living being for it to consciously not want to have kids?

And we achieved this level of abuse on humans! And we did it very well, in reproducible way, with reproducible results across multiple countries! We should make a research paper about it.

So, let's say you have a system where people go to work, do their job, and get paid. The employer wants more productivity, so the work becomes more stressful ("a full workload"). The worker does more for less, the company celebrates.

There is a hidden element here: stress. Your workers will be more productive, however their baseline stress levels will rise over time. It's cumulative and takes years to show; but it means everyone above a certain age who works a well paying job has a high stress burden. A lot of people live without any job security.

Stressed organisms do not reproduce.

The short answer is: I don't want to.

The longer answer is: I really, seriously, don't want to.

I was raised in a very dysfunctional household. I broke free, met an amazing partner, and we both wanted children. I finally have the opportunity to be a kid again with them, provide them the childhood I never had and be apart of it, by having the childhood I never had. My kids are 9 & 11… and we are slowly having to pull back on fun active activities outdoors during the summer months because the environment is getting worse and worse year over year…

I broke the cycle, but their childhood is slowly being robbed of them.

Record rain in my area to where water drainage infrastructure is being destroyed bit by bit every fucking night. Massive tornado inducing storms where we normally don’t see them (a freak event killed a bunch of people and destroyed nearly a billion dollars in property back in the 80s, nothing since and nothing before). Record amount of tornados in my Province, humid as fuck when I live in the prairies. Smokey unbeatable air because of the one area not getting rain burning down.

I want off this ride.

I went to the Arctic in 2006, learned a lot about our climate future, and decided that if any of it started coming true I wouldn't have any kids. 20 years later, it's all far worse than we imagined and i am happy i didn't bring kids into this mess.

feeling like the whole society is absolute delulu atp. the world is going down so why the fuck would you set kids in this world? everybody is acting like they dont fear the future and everybody is just thinking one day ahead. do they really think its going to get better by magic?

Number One: I'm a homosexual, so I'm not having the reproductive type of copulation, EVER.

Number Two: Bigots. They poisoned public perception of homosexuals. They fought to legislate away our rights and prevent us from adopting children amongst many other things like legalized marriage. They pushed gay people into the fringes of society, lead our friends and families to abandon us, marginalized, and isolated us. Those scars run deep and the societal damage is still festering. Even if I were still young enough to feel confident I could raise a child and live long enough to finish the job now that things are "better" and these rights are an option to me, I wouldn't adopt. I have seen the inside, and I know it's all too easy for society to fall back into the abyss. NO thank you. I'm already at max capacity caring for adult parents, can't imagine if there were children in the equation as well.

Now that's just me personally. On the other hand...

Fewer couples have the capacity and/or desire to support a family, let alone a large one, as it means a loss of income from one or both partners not working, vastly increased expenses, strain on relationships, and a myriad other problems. If most people could live comfortably and with reasonably fulfilled needs/desires on the income from one person and it didn't require that one person to work themselves to death, then you might see higher birth rates.

Anecdotally, the people I'm seeing having the most kids (like 3+) are pretty much all financially very well off or struggling really badly. There are exceptions, of course, but most couples who are keeping their heads above water (if only barely) know their limits and recognize that having kids, let alone multiple children, would bring hardship to all involved.

Trying to find a moment in history when the long term outlook was rosey enough to say "Now is the right time to have kids", and I can't.

Part of having kids is the struggle of supporting other people. Part of the joy of having kids is positioning a future person to do things you lacked the opportunity to do, yourself.

If humanity can solve climate change, we still will not be the generation that lives to see it. We'll pass the torch and then our children will pass the torch and then our grandchildren will know if we were successfully.

In the US you can't even buy vegetables right now without worrying about getting explosive diarrhea. Just the thing you want for your children.

I just don't want kids. Knew I never wanted to be a parent ever since I was a kid having to help my parents raise my nephews and niece. I could be a billionaire and every problem on Earth could be solved, I still wouldn't have kids.

Not to mention the clear financial aspect

this feels like that one sponge bob meme template with the trash or whatevs.

I was looking at the costs of raising a child the other day and I don't know how anyone does it. My job pays garbage with trash health insurance.

I'm just so mad at the management class with their high pay and not doing any actual work. My boss seems fine - I think he knows this is bullshit and goes a little out of his way to make it easier for me. But everyone above him? If I saw them drowning I'd have to think a long time before throwing a life vest.